Voters who like Hillary but not Obama might shape America’s political future

Monday

May 5, 2014 at 11:11 AMMay 5, 2014 at 12:50 PM

American politics are always more complicated than they seem on the surface. Consensus is elusive and transitory. Voters are fickle. Polls are sometimes misleading. Much of the potential electorate doesn’t bother voting.

Amid this confusing mess, columnist E. J. Dionne has discerned a relatively small segment of the electorate that might well reshape the political scene over the next few years.

HERE‘s his analysis:

The roughly one-eighth of voters who disapprove of [President] Obama but nonetheless support [Hillary] Clinton for 2016 may be the most important group in the electorate. If Democratic candidates can collectively manage to corral Clinton’s share of the national electorate this fall, the party would likely keep control of the Senate and might take over the House of Representatives. The latter outcome is now seen (even by most Democrats) as a virtual impossibility. These Hillary Difference Voters, as we’ll call them, could find themselves the most courted contingent in this year’s contests.

American politics are always more complicated than they seem on the surface. Consensus is elusive and transitory. Voters are fickle. Polls are sometimes misleading. Much of the potential electorate doesn’t bother voting.

Amid this confusing mess, columnist E. J. Dionne has discerned a relatively small segment of the electorate that might well reshape the political scene over the next few years.

HERE‘s his analysis:

The roughly one-eighth of voters who disapprove of [President] Obama but nonetheless support [Hillary] Clinton for 2016 may be the most important group in the electorate. If Democratic candidates can collectively manage to corral Clinton’s share of the national electorate this fall, the party would likely keep control of the Senate and might take over the House of Representatives. The latter outcome is now seen (even by most Democrats) as a virtual impossibility. These Hillary Difference Voters, as we’ll call them, could find themselves the most courted contingent in this year’s contests.